After everything had been arranged,
Rinya, who had always gone her own way, made an unusually bold decision—one she had been planning for some time.
This time, she would only take part in the final stages. Kushida Kikyo and Ibuki Mio would be entirely responsible for carrying out the rest of the plan.
Although it would have been most prudent for her to personally conduct such a dangerous test, she thought of the many more powerful and capable tools she would recruit in the future.
Having made plans for the long term, Rinya had wanted to test her tools for quite some time, but had never found the right opportunity.
After all, she had come from the White Room, and the ideas of survival of the fittest and the strong prevailing over the weak were engraved deep in her bones.
Now, with the Uninhabited Island trip about to begin, it was the perfect chance to uncover any uncertainties. She also wanted to see whether the tools she had chosen still deserved to follow her in the future.
When the two girls heard this that day, they were both taken aback, their faces clouded with worry.
But once they heard the other meaning behind their master's decision to test them this time, they immediately understood what she meant.
Although their master's merciless, cold words had shaken them to the core,
they knew that if they were rejected now, they would probably be expelled in the future. Even though there was still time, how could they dare let their guard down?
Ibuki Mio immediately decided to go back and keep a close eye on Ryuen Kakeru. If anything changed, she would call Kushida Kikyo.
After all, given his cautious and suspicious nature, Ibuki Mio, who was always by his side, really couldn't be sure he'd be obedient and show up as promised.
As for Ken Sudō, the catalyst for this whole operation, Rinya had made arrangements for Kushida well in advance. When they visited him, she had already taken the opportunity to stick a tracker on his back.
Now that she had handed Kushida the phone that controlled the tracker, what happened next was up to her.
"Master, I..." Kushida said, her voice full of hesitation as she took the phone.
"Oh? Are you scared?"
"N-no..."
Kushida rarely spoke in such an odd tone. Looking at her, Rinya wondered what was on her mind.
Under Rinya's steady gaze, Kushida pressed her lips together, her face flustered.
But thinking of what her master had told her that day, she still did her best to voice the worry she'd been bottling up.
"Ma... Master, I really had no idea that Hirata would ask me to take on that fund plan. Otherwise, I would have refused."
"It's all my fault for being so careless and never thinking things through. Now I've not only offended you, Master, but I don't even know how to face everyone in class anymore."
"Waaah..."
As she spoke, Kushida, convinced she'd made a terrible mistake, couldn't hold back her sobs.
"Oh? Is that all?"
Rinya chuckled and shook her head, her tone turning teasing. "You've been with me for a while now. Do you really think your master is that petty?"
As she stroked Kushida's hair, she felt rather speechless. She truly hadn't cared about the incident at the time.
But thinking about it now, there were indeed some people who needed to be dealt with. Otherwise, her adorable tool might run into trouble if she acted in this state.
She wondered whether she could draw that person out in the process, too. She was getting more and more excited.
"That's enough. I'll take care of that matter. Just go to class as usual tomorrow. No one will say anything to you."
"But I have to remind you again: Ken Sudō may well take revenge tonight. Make sure you coordinate your timing with Ibuki Mio. Don't disappoint me."
"Mm-hmm. Th-thank you, Master." Kushida wiped her damp eyes, her bright gaze filled with a young girl's tender affection.
"All right, all right. Figure out what to do on your own."
Rinya waved a hand casually and was about to leave, but added, "If both sides get beaten by Koenji, remember to let me know. I'm looking forward to wrapping up this grand spectacle myself. Heh..."
"Yes!"
Watching Rinya stroll away, Kushida clenched her small hands, her eyes full of determination.
No matter what, she would give her master the most satisfactory answer this time—not only for the sake of her own future, but also for the long-buried feelings in her heart, feelings she herself couldn't describe.
That night, Kushida arrived early to scout the area around the gym.
She set up a high-resolution camera in a dense patch of bushes, intending to record the entire fight.
Perhaps because that was how the dirt on her had first been discovered,
she now wanted to see whether she could gather more dirt on Koenji for her master during this attempt to test him.
When her phone gave a faint buzz, she opened it and saw that, just as her master had said, Ken Sudō had already sneaked out of the hospital.
But what confused her was that he showed no sign of heading toward the gym. Instead, he was moving quickly toward the southeastern part of the school.
If she remembered correctly, that was where the school regularly recruited volunteers from outside. Why would he be going there...?
The more Kushida wondered about it, the stranger it seemed.
For some reason, as she watched the red dot on her phone move faster and faster, an inexplicable sense of danger crept over her.
Realizing something was wrong, she was just about to call Ibuki Mio and tell her what was happening when, as she picked up her phone, a call from Ibuki came through.
"Hello, Ibuki-chan. I was just about to tell you something. It's—"
Before she could finish, Ibuki's hurried voice cut her off.
"Run..."
"Run, Kushida Kikyo! Ryuen Kakeru found out something was wrong with me—"
"Run? Ibuki, what's going on? Tell me!"
Hearing Ibuki's broken, halting voice, Kushida sensed that something had gone terribly wrong and hurriedly pressed her for an answer.
But by then, the call had already disconnected...
When she called back, all she heard was the message that the phone was switched off.
"How could this happen...?" Kushida lowered her phone in a daze, her pupils contracting.
She had never imagined that what she thought would be a simple operation requiring only a little coordination could take such an unexpected turn.
It all seemed to be happening far too fast—so fast that she hadn't seen it coming, so fast that she didn't know what to do.
"What should I do? Should I ask Master for help...?" Kushida asked herself, but fell silent.
Only then did she think of her master's meaningful words that morning.
It seemed that only now did she fully understand the real reason for the test.
"Bzz, bzz..."
Just then, her phone vibrated again. Kushida opened it without thinking, but the moment she saw more than a dozen question marks clustered around the red dot, she was completely stunned.
She remembered her master telling her that the question marks represented the life signs of nearby humans detected by the tracker's thermal imaging.
"But... how... how can there be so many...?" Kushida murmured, then lost her balance and dropped to the ground.
Ibuki had suddenly gone missing—
A group of people had suddenly appeared around Sudō—
The operation had barely begun, yet Kushida already felt utterly lost.
Just as she was out of options and, in despair, was about to ask her master for help,
another version of herself appeared in Kushida's hazy mind...
It was a Kushida whose personality was completely opposite to her own.
Although they had switched places once before, to her it had felt like nothing more than a dream. And deep down, she had never liked that violent version of herself.
But now, with no way out, she heard the other tell her that asking for help meant she would definitely be eliminated in the future.
This time, trapped between threats from within and without, she was finally willing to hand herself over to the other completely. She could only hope it would all remain a dream, and that when she woke, she would still be the same gentle, sweet girl...
"So it's finally my turn?"
"Hmph!"
"Damn that man. Just watch. I absolutely won't lose this time."
The girl's pupils gradually turned a dusky purple. She violently tore open the jacket she was wearing, leaving only her dark clothes.
At that moment, she seemed to merge completely with the night.
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